Are We Having Trouble With Change?

P.Scott Cummins © 2004 The UrbaneR

Just this week I heard praises of Magnolia from faraway Uganda. For several years Magnolia families have donated out-grown sports jerseys bearing the familiar designs of our community sports leagues. Sister Schools ships them to Uganda – a country renowned for making forgiveness and reconciliation a societal touchstone in the wake of horrible genocide twenty-plus years ago. These lessons were not lost on me working in Uganda last month. Now we hear from Uganda about the spreading fame of Magnolia. Donating snazzy (and high quality) jerseys to Ugandan children earns us praise. You see, aid organizations too often receive ratty old tee shirts from the developed world. So, from their vantage, we have done needy children well. In return, maybe we can benefit from Uganda’s laudable example of peacemaking and civil discourse in society.

This past week witnessed two groups pushing the ‘panic button’ even as perhaps our most intrusive public neighbor has ‘pulled the rug out.’ Some neighbors of the home building project at the old Briarcliff School; strategy of Friends of Discovery Park regarding Capehart military housing; and Port of Seattle public planning process at Interbay – are similar in a crucial way, summed up in a single word: change.

Briarcliff Elementary School was a victim of ‘white flight’ in the 1970’s and 80’s. Families left Magnolia for the suburbs to an appreciable degree – but in large part demographics remained stable – and Magnolia families opted for private schools instead. This was not unusual in Seattle, where a metropolis of politically progressive professionals have created the second largest per-capita private school population in the nation – with only limousine liberal citadel New York City a more odious example. In 2004 we are nigh-on as culturally segregated as Little Rock in 1954. And perhaps worse, remain a community effectively incapable of holding true dialogue on the subject. When school district negligence created a fiscal crisis, Briarcliff’s sale became a crucial response.

A few neighbors have protested the resulting high end home development, and distributed a flyer. But many more community activists say their “due diligence” is more positive. To test this, last week I met with developer John Cochenour. He walked me through reams of public comments received, overwhelmingly favoring traditional style homes. So look for traditional Magnolia character and densities there. Better still, go read the sign at Briarcliff, visit the website, and comment yourself. I do agree with the complaining neighbors on one issue though (and the ‘Briarcliff Revival’ project actually helps by creating pedestrian-friendly neighborhood character): I’ve had it with speeding drivers on our side streets. We can make headway on this issue, but only if more folks get involved - and join the Magnolia Community Club.

Recently a blizzard of signs has emerged imploring you to ‘save’ Discovery Park. Now that’s important. What has the Friends of Discovery Park asked you to save? I went to their website. The message was a shocker. I could not believe what it said. “Best case scenario: Capehart housing is renovated and continues to house Navy families.”

What about Discovery Park’s master plan? One might assume that Friends, seeing the city pass on purchasing Capehart when the military initially offered it thirty years ago, would plan for this moment with relish. The Navy is, after all, a willing seller – albeit a seller bound by enormous federal statutory and regulatory oversight. It is high time our public officials do the right thing and acknowledge the Navy for playing fair and lawfully. Pressure groups associated with the Discovery Park have consistently called for the Capehart tract’s return to native habitat. Why then, in this ‘golden moment’ of opportunity, confusing calls for status quo? Somehow I missed the community forums and outreach by Friends explaining their strategy. The dynamic at play is hinted, though, in a letter to the Navy sent earlier this month by Jim McDermott, Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray:

“In 1986, the Seattle City Council adopted the Discovery Park Development plan that calls for the eventual inclusion of the military housing areas in the park and for the 66-unit Capehart tract ultimately to be removed and converted to open space.”

It is increasingly clear that city officials have not effectively planned for this change. With government, development plans have budgetary consequences. Budgets are a process of setting priorities. Was Capehart on the horizon, even as they set priorities for millions in METRO sewage plant mitigation money? And with designated opportunity funds left out of the ostensibly ‘pro’ parks capital levy? In essence, we are left to conclude: money for Taj Mahal city hall, yes. Money to make Discovery Park whole, no.

Last week the Port of Seattle abruptly and quietly suspended the ‘North Bay’ redevelopment zone planning process. Where does this leave community leaders focusing on complex sets of issues created by this project? Or the enormous waste of emergent port-focused energy by our Community Club? Port of Seattle: you have fence-mending to do with Magnolia. A start for our elected advocate, Commissioner Paige Miller: give us the real scoop on North Bay. As would firm commitment from Port planners to work with Seattle Parks on process regarding a land swap between Park’s sports-designated and view-full (but hopelessly crowded) Smith Cove and the wide open northern-most portion of the Port’s ‘North Bay’ site. Putting sports fields just off Thorndyke Avenue (where yellow buses park now), reachable without having to leave Magnolia, only makes sense. A commute clear out of Magnolia to Smith Cove so seven year olds can play micro soccer – now that calls for a conversation. Let’s not ‘pull the rug out’ from having that discussion merely because the Port is currying favor with City Hall by delaying high technology development plans at North Bay. And hey, let’s follow the example of our Ugandan admirers, and keep it civil.

Family Man

I am a family man
I traded in my mustang for a mini-van
This is not what I was headed for when I began
This was not my plan
I am a family man

But everything I had to lose
Came back a thousand times in you
And you fill me up with love
Fill me up with love
And you help me stand
'Cause I am a family man

And life is good
That's something I always knew
But I just never understood
If you'd asked me then, you know I'd say I never would
Settle down in a neighborhood
I never though I could

But I don't remember anymore
Who I even was before
You filled me up with love
Filled me up with love
And you help me stand

So come on with the thunderclouds
Let the cold winds rail against us
Let the rain come down
We can build a roof above us with the love we found
And we can stand our ground
So let the rain come down

'Cause love binds up what breaks in two
So keep my heart so close to you
And I'll fill you up with love
Fill you up with love
And I'll help you stand
'Cause I am a family man

I'm saving my vacation time for Disneyland
This is not what I was headed for when I began
This was not my plan
It's so much better than
So much better than
'Cause I am a family man
...

Artist: Andrew Peterson
Album: Love and Thunder
Label: Watershed / Essential

Guilting the Lilly

Guilting the Lilly
P. Scott Cummins © 2004 The UrbaneR

Like a bad marriage, Seattle School Board Director Dick Lilly can at least offer that it started off so very well. With stellar credentials as a journalist and consummate city hall insider – he offered us hope of a bright future together. Sure, he already had kids, but then, so did all of us with children in the Seattle Public Schools. With some work, we could make it a lasting relationship. And my, could he talk about his hopes for small schools. Practically made me think he knew Bill and Melinda Gates personally with all the talk of their Foundation. And always the promise to keep an open mind regarding charter schools – to preserve our options. The newly renovated, and therefore over-enrolled, Ballard High School was causing no end of headache for Queen Anne and Magnolia families “aced out” by assignment plans worthy of the Politburo – but Lilly assured us he had it covered. He had been a reporter after all. Yes indeed, he was really going to ‘have at it’ for us. Just three short years ago.

Fast forward to summer, 2004: We are working our way out from under $33 million in accounting errors and budget shortfalls from 2000 (albeit before his watch) through 2003. There is hardly a school building in Seattle which can keep a principal, and the vacuum caused by leadership turnover is frustrating parents to the boiling point. But the topper is the high school assignment plan. This year we asked the voters to approve operating and capital levies (I say “we” because of my extensive volunteering on its behalf), and what came as the most immediate response to the Queen Anne and Magnolia communities? Answer: a high school assignment plan so punishing to our students it clearly must have been designed to send a message. I have been a booster of the Seattle Public Schools for most of my life. But the sheer malevolence of this assignment plan crosses the line. And shatters trust.

Ordering an advanced placement (“AP”) eligible student to ride a bus almost two hours to attend a high school where AP is a chimera – creates intolerable injustice to the educational potential of that child. If that child were eligible under a protected legal status by the civil rights laws of this country, government would leap into action, protecting equal access to education. Not so if that child is in the mainstream. (Oh, how carefully we tread in these areas, the minefields of politically correct society run amok.) Why, you ask? Well, to spare you a semester’s study of constitutional law, because the mainstream child’s parents have the full benefits and advantages of the political process. In other words, we vote on our problems. And Houston, we have a problem, because the Seattle Public Schools is one crippled ship headed out of orbit.

I was proud to go to Meany Middle School and Ballard High School in the 1970’s. And I have volunteered and financially contributed to Ballard ever since. I have also volunteered at Franklin and here at Blaine (where my daughters attend). The Seattle Public Schools has succeeded in one thing though: eroding my thirty-plus years of bedrock support into quicksand – because of what I see them doing to high school children who don’t deserve such horrible treatment.

And where is this high school that so many of our students have been assigned? Look, it is easy to find out. Suffice it to say that this school is part of Dick Lilly’s small school dream – calling it “our achiever high school” in letters he has written. So what of its achievements? In looking at the teacher website for the highest level math and science courses offered, even the faintest glimmer of hope for student achievement is shut down. Regarding each course offering the teacher states “Extra Credit - Really there isn’t any. Don’t ask.” with regard to Physics, and “There is essentially no extra credit. You don’t need to ask.” about Pre-calculus. This puts it plain as day. Do the course work and don’t bother me. We are having no advanced work here for motivated AP students. This is essentially an academic death sentence for those students.

The Seattle School Board should immediately amend the high school assignment rules to reflect the real needs of the advanced placement learner: if an eighth grader qualifies (by current school district testing procedures) for advanced placement learning, then that student must be given assignment to a high school for which there are AP offering in each and every subject (math, language arts, social studies, science) for which that student qualifies – and that school can be no more than one half hour away, door-to-door. This action benefits all students, because as Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said in her most recent “State of Education “address: “Four times as many Washington students are taking advanced placement exams as they did 10 years ago, and over the past five years, participation rates for students of color have increased between 70 and 170 percent.” This action is about delivering on the dream for all students in the Seattle Schools, and will create strong incentives for middle school students to maximize their efforts headed toward high school.

Finally, what about basic fairness for high school students on Magnolia and Queen Anne? District officials should take immediate action on construction plans (following the successful example of West Seattle High’s temporary move into a middle school building), shifting Roosevelt High School’s temporary location to the former Wilson junior high school on North 90th near Aurora Avenue in North Seattle. This will allow the enormously important resource of Abraham Lincoln High School to be opened again as a school reborn – an incredibly overdue milestone. Lincoln, because of its close proximity to the University of Washington, is a “no brainer” for advanced placement learning. Its location on the major 45th street thoroughfare - and mid-way between Highway 99 and Interstate 5, provides commute options superior to any other high school in the city. Lincoln is right there, waiting to reach its potential. We should do no less to foster the potential of our high school students, because Dick Lilly’s dream has become a nightmare for our community.

Thinking About Our Ron Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan, a husband and father, died June 5, 2004. He was 93. For us, who are Magnolia neighbors and friends to his son Ron and daughter in law Doria, this is what matters. All of us have experienced the grief and loss from death of a close one. For a community which has guarded the privacy of these, our Magnolia neighbors for over a decade, a time has come to reach out. And we have already, in many appropriate ways. For others of us, who have not yet made the acquaintance of Ron and Doria, we can honor them in this time of grief - by renewing our commitment to reach out to one another in this little community they love so much. It was perhaps our spirit of community, in this beautiful place beside a bustling city, which brought them to our midst. And they are, like us, good people - enjoying life in full measure. When folks around us experience a death, it is so important to reach out. No, they do not want to be left alone. They need company, your good company. Willing to reach out. And spend time. And yes, you will think of the right thing to say. You are thinking about them, and care about them, and wanted them to know that.

The children of presidents never have it easy. Especially namesakes. And most of all when that president is emblematic for an era. It was the case for a man named John Kennedy – just as it has been for Ron Reagan. Two entirely different circumstances, with the same challenge. And thanks in some small part to neighbors with the grace and sense to just be themselves; we have been participants in something rare and wonderful: a presidential son allowed to be… himself. In this day and age of retread politics-as-family-business, I love the fact that OUR Ron Reagan is so darn liberal – it says so much about the American West and our spirit of free thinking. Devoid of any compulsion to lock step, yet paying homage to his father’s roots in the Democratic Party and leadership of the Screen Actors Guild. Still, for a presidential son, nothing can be so easy. Subtle nuance and enigmatic reserve help a great deal. So do neighbors that tell paparazzi to get lost. And now, with such an enormous loss to bear, are caring neighbors who reach out. Just like neighbors do. Like you.

It does not take long for anyone to figure out that our fortieth president, Ronald Reagan, is my hero. Much is being said this week about Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. One thing more all of us can add to the remembrances: he raised a fine son. Who bears his name. And is our neighbor. We want you to know that we feel your loss, Ron, and are reaching out among one another in a spirit of caring to honor your father and family. Because this week, as Americans, we are all one family.

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we are in a time when there are no heroes just don't know where to look. You can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful in number, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. You meet heroes across a counter—and they are on both sides of that counter. There are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in an idea who create new jobs, new wealth and opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the Government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, culture, art, and education. Their patriotism is quiet but deep. Their values sustain our national life.
I have used the words "they" and "their" in speaking of these heroes. I could say "you" and "your" because I am addressing the heroes of whom I speak—you, the citizens of this blessed land.


President Ronald Reagan
First Inaugural Address
Tuesday, January 20, 1981

Perdition for Road Warriors

By P. Scott Cummins © 2004 The Urbane R

Make it downtown for John Kerry’s waterfront “photo op” last week? Me neither. Wasn’t invited. With donation patterns tending to favor causes over candidates, this is often the case for me - with regard to both parties. Still, seeing Kerry there couldn’t help get me thinking about what it will be like along the waterfront, or anywhere downtown, once they tear down the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Wouldn’t you love to know if Mayor Nickels brought up the subject when Kerry came to town? It might have gone like this: Excuse me Senator. See that ugly, noisy mess of a proto-freeway over there? That’s like the second busiest stretch of roadway in the entire State of Washington. No, err, yes - really. My wife loves my jokes too, Senator. But, about the Via… Yeah, I think your new campaign plane looks way cool too. Yeah, Boeing. Chicago now, that’s right. Uh huh, 757. Great plane, great plane. See, we are $3.9 billion short on fun… What’s that Senator? Your friends call you JFK? He was my favorite president too. Well, but you are my favorite future president (laughing). I bet you get that a lot! I agree, Sims or Gregoire can’t go wrong there. Uh huh, now about that … Yes, Senators Murray and Cantwell certainly are very capable, but you see, what the people don’t realize yet is that even if we can get the funding, shutting down that road is going to paralyze… Yes, you’re right, shades of the “Big Dig” alright. I quite agree, you’ve got bigger fish to fry right now, with them shutting down freeways in Boston during the Convention. One headache at a time, I quite agree. Thanks for your time.

Did it happen that way? Who knows – I must have missed the coverage on the Seattle Channel. Since we live in one of the most enlightened and benevolent urban dictatorships found anywhere, we hear only what’s needed, when needed. And in the Soviet of Seattle, we get our information spoon-fed with an expectation to swallow whole. The sad part is, most folks are happy to play right along. Particularly, it seems, with regard to replacement of the viaduct. Take the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce, who just last week endorsed the most expensive “tunnel” viaduct replacement option. Personally, I am disappointed, because of dashed hopes that sometime during this “light bulb” stage the recommendation would re-emerge for a temporary ($1 billion, 20 – 25 Year) north-south Elliott Bay suspension bridge to preserve our basic vehicular capacity and economic well-being. So let’s just suppose that Congress is going to pony-up three to four billion by 2008 (much more if you add in the needed seawall replacement), and we are off to the races with viaduct demolition, seawall replacement, and digging for a brand new tunnel. What then? I recall the three year, $444 million bus tunnel project in the late eighties. That was a time in purgatory for downtown Seattle. Looking ahead on the Viaduct, and gauging the broad-side-of-the-barn time estimates thrown around, will be utter perdition. A disaster movie in the making, right here in Seattle, with our very own monster: Viaductus Horriblis. From my informal survey of major public transportation infrastructure projects (including Boston’s Big Dig, Seattle’s Bus Tunnel, and the I-90 project from Factoria westwards), cost estimates are tight – while projections on completion time are loose. Conclusion: plan for a decade or more of construction. And you thought World War II took a long time! And like that conflict, success will take sacrifice. Can’t stand Elliott Avenue, which is prone to back-up anywhere this side of the Art Institute of Seattle? Remember some of those historic backups, the ones that started before leaving Magnolia, or in Belltown? Ready for a decade or more of that kind of aggravation? Here’s a word to the wise: no matter what you “recall” about the Monorail, it is going to be one fantastic commuter option during the upcoming decade of viaduct construction. And one quick observation about the Monorail detractors: if they are that upset about elevated transport, their feelings about Sound Transit must eclipse road rage itself. So what are they going to do when word reaches them about the sheer, atrocious, Boston-Big-Dig scale of Viaductus Horriblis? Seattle’s benevolent-elected ones need to ponder that, because something tells me the depths of animus from Seattle’s public are yet to be plumbed. The Washington State Department of Transportation has a catchy slogan based on their share of the gas tax: “It’s Your Nickel. Watch It Work.” Can Hizzoner can paraphrase that – and get results? His job, and our standard of living, hangs in the balance.